Darts

Darts

Darts in a dartboard
Highest governing body	WDF & PDC
First played	approx 1870s[1]
Registered players	655 WDF ranked players 679 PDPA ranked players
Characteristics
Team members	Team events exist, see World Cup
Mixed gender	Separate men's & women's championship although no restrictions on women competing against men.
Olympic	No

For current information on this topic, see 2009 in darts.

Darts refers to a variety of related sports, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dartboard) hung on a wall. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term 'darts' usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules. As well as being a professional competitive activity, darts is a traditional pub game, commonly played in the United Kingdom (the first country to officially recognise darts as a sport), across the Commonwealth, the Netherlands, Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, Canada and elsewhere.

Dartboards

Modern day bristle dartboards were first produced by Nodor in 1932, replacing the plasticine dartboards which had a strong chemical odour. When Nodor invented the new bristle dartboard it did not smell, so was named No-Odour (NODOR). Modern dartboards are made of sisal fibers; low quality boards are sometimes made of coiled paper. However, there are several types of sisal fibre that are used in dartboards today, originating from East Africa, Brazil and China.

A regulation board is 47.08 cm (17¾")^[2] in diameter and is divided into 20 sections. Each section is separated with metal wire or a thin band of sheet metal. The best dartboards have the thinnest wire separating sections so that the darts have less chance of hitting these wires and bouncing out. The numbers indicating the various scoring sections of the board are normally made of wire, especially on tournament-quality boards, but may be printed directly on the board instead.

Height and distance

In the standard game, the dartboard is hung so that the bullseye is 5 ft 8 in (1.7 m) from the floor: eye-level for a six foot person. The oche (IPA: /'ɒki/) - the line behind which the throwing player must stand - is generally 7 ft 9¼ in (2.37 m) from the face of the dartboard measured horizontally. This is the recognised world standard as set by the World Darts Federation and is played as such in most areas. Owing to measurement error, this may be incorrect in some places (such as measuring from the wall, rather than using a plumb line to measure from the board face). The diagonal distance from the bull's eye to the oche will be 9ft 7.41in, usually rounded to 9ft 7.5in, when horizontal measurement from the dart board face isn't easily done.

London 5 board or narrow 5's board set up is slightly different from the standard board. The height is set at 5 feet 6 inches to the center of the bull and the oche is at 9 feet from the face of the board.^[3]

Unlike the traditional folklore many believe, as it was previously printed here, there was no Hockey & Sons brewery. Two theories exist on the origin of the starting point. The first theory about the word “oche” had it’s origin through a brewery called "Hockey and Sons" or "S.Hockey and Sons" , in the West Country of England.

The original throwing distance for darts was 9 feet. It is said that “Hockey & Sons” delivered bottled beer to pubs which came in wooden crates that was exactly 3 feet long.

One English pub owner then made the 9 feet rule by placing three “Hockey & Sons” beer crates (3 x 3 feet) as a distance marker. Many people also believed this is how the phrase “toeing the hockey” came about, which added more validity to this theory.

Sadly it seems this theory is completely untrue, because no record exist anywhere in Britain about a brewer/y called ‘S. Hockey & Sons’ or 'Hockey & Sons' for that matter. This was apparently confirmed by the Brewery History Society in the early 1990's as explained on the website of the darts historian Patrick Chaplin.

The second theory about the word "oche" had it’s origin, when an English newspaper, News of the World, who held darts competitions in the 1920’s, used the word “hockey” for the throwing line in their “tournament rules”.

The word “hockey” was derived from an old English word “hocken” which meant "to spit". It is said that spitting competitions were held in the public bar of the English public house, and that the “hockey line” was determined by the length that a given player could spit from a position with his back to the dartboard. - DartsInfoWorld

History

The dartboard may have its origins in the cross section of a tree. An old name for a dartboard is a 'butt', and from this, folk etymology infers that the bottoms of wine barrels were the original dartboards; this word in fact comes, via archery, from the French word butte, meaning target. Various designs of dartboards have been used, and regional variations remain in parts of Staffordshire, Manchester (log-end board)^[4] and Yorkshire. In particular, the Yorkshire and Perrigo Manchester boards differ from the standard board in that they have a single, inner bull and no treble ring. The London Fives board is another variation. This has only 12 equal segments numbered 20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10,20,5,15,10 with the doubles and trebles being a quarter of an inch wide.^[5]

There is speculation that the game originated among soldiers throwing short arrows at the bottom of the cask or at the bottom of trunks of trees. As the wood dried, cracks would develop, creating "sections". Soon, regional standards emerged and many woodworkers supplemented bar tabs by fabricating dart boards for the local pubs.

The numbering plan generally in use today has a 20 on top; however, a great many other configurations have been used throughout the years and in different geographical locations. By most accounts, the numbering layout was devised by Brian Gamlin in 1896 to penalise inaccuracy. Although this applies to most of the board, the left-hand side (near the 14 section) is preferred by beginners, for its concentration of larger numbers. Mathematically, removing the rotational symmetry by placing the "20" at the top, there are 19!, or 121,645,100,408,832,000 possible dartboards. Many different layouts would penalise a player more than the current setup; however, the current setup actually does the job rather efficiently.^[6] There have been several mathematical papers published that consider the "optimal" dartboard.^[7]

Scoring

The standard dartboard is divided into 20 numbered sections, scoring from 1 to 20 points, by wires running from the small central circle to the outer circular wire. Circular wires within the outer wire subdivide each section into single, double and triple areas.

Various games can be played (and still are played informally) using the standard dartboard. However, in the official game, any dart landing inside the outer wire scores as follows:

• Hitting one of the large portions of each of the numbered sections, traditionally alternately coloured black and white, scores the points value of that section.
  • Hitting the thin outer portions of these sections, coloured red and green, scores double the points value of that section.
  • Hitting the thin inner portions of these sections, roughly halfway between the outer wire and the central circle and again coloured red or green, scores triple the points value of that section.
• The central circle is divided into a green outer ring worth 25 points (known as "outer", "outer bull", or "iris") and a red inner circle (usually known as "bull", "inner bull" or "double bull"), worth 50 points. The term "bullseye" can mean either the whole central part of the board or just the inner red section. The term "bull's ring" usually means just the green outer ring.
• Hitting outside the outer wire scores nothing.
• Any dart that does not remain in the board after throwing (for example, a dart that hits a wire and bounces out of the board or drops out with the impact of a later throw) also scores nothing. Variations on this rule exist - some judge that a dart which obviously hits a scoring section but then subsequently drops out will count if caught before it hits the floor or if it rebounds behind the throwing line before touching the ground it may be thrown again. In professional rules, a dart's tip must be touching a scoring section for the dart to count. Despite some house rules, hitting the inside of a wire number around the edge of the board does not score any points.

The highest score possible with 3 darts is 180, commonly known as a "ton 80" (100 points is called a ton), obtained when all three darts land in the triple 20. In the televised game, the referee frequently announces a score of 180 in exuberant style.

Playing darts

The sport of darts is usually contested between two players who take turns in throwing up to three darts. Starting from a set score, usually 501 or 301, a player wins by reducing his score to zero. The last dart in the leg must hit either a double or the inner portion of the bullseye, which is the double of the outer bull, and must reduce the score to exactly 0. Successfully doing so is known as "doubling out" or "checking out" (see the Glossary of darts for more darts terminology). A throw that would reduce a player's score to less than zero does not count, his turn ends, and his score is reset to what it was before that turn. (Sometimes in friendly games a player is allowed a dog's chance by "splitting the eleven" if he has a remaining score of 1: this requires placing a final dart between the legs of the number 11 in the normally non-scoring part of the board.) Since the double areas are small, doubling out is usually the most difficult and tense part of a leg. Longer matches are often divided into sets, each comprising some number of legs.

Although playing straight down from 501 is standard in darts, other variations exist, notably "doubling in", where players must hit a double to begin scoring, with all darts thrown before said double contributing nothing to their score.

Other games that are commonly played differ in their scoring methods. These include "Round the Clock", "Jumpers", "Killer" and the more complicated "Cricket" and "Tactics".

In "Round the Clock", players must hit each numbered section in turn, finishing with a bull to win. Far from being a beginner's game, Round The Clock is a good training game since it practises targeting all areas of the board, a skill which is essential when finishing a classic leg.

In Killer, a number of players "own" a number on the dartboard (often selected by throwing a dart with their non-playing arm) and compete to build up "lives" (by hitting that number) until a threshold is reached (usually 4 or 6) before attempting to "kill" other players by removing the lives they have built up (by hitting those other players' number) until a single player is left.

Professional organizations

Of the two professional organisations, the British Darts Organisation (BDO), founded 1973, is the older. Its tournaments are often shown on the BBC in the UK and on SBS6 in the Netherlands. The BDO is a member of the World Darts Federation (WDF) (founded 1976), along with organizations in some 60 other countries worldwide. The BDO originally organised a number of the more prestigious British tournaments with a few notable exceptions such as the News of the World Championship and the national events run under the auspices of the National Darts Association of Great Britain. However, many sponsors were lost and British TV coverage became much reduced by the early nineties.

In 1992 a breakaway organisation was formed, initially known as the World Darts Council (WDC) but shortly after known as the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). The PDC tournaments have a considerable following, although due to their coverage on subscription-based Sky television, the PDC World Championship has lower TV viewing figures than that of the BDO.

The PDC tournaments often have higher prize money and feature the leading player in the history of the game, 14-time World Champion Phil Taylor. The highly successful BDO player Raymond van Barneveld switched to the PDC and won the PDC World Championship at his first attempt in 2007.

Professional competitions

The BDO and PDC both organise a World Professional Championship. They are held annually over the Christmas/New Year period, with the PDC championship finishing slightly earlier than the BDO tournament. The BDO World Championship has been running since 1978; the PDC World Championship started in 1994.

Both organisations hold other professional tournaments. The BDO organise the World Masters and many Open tournaments. They also organise county darts for their 64 county members in the UK including individual and team events.

The PDC's major tournaments are the World Championships Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix. All of these are broadcast live on Sky Sports television in the UK. They also hold PDC Pro Tour events and smaller category events around the UK. As of 2007 the PDC have introduced two new televised major tournaments - the US Open (to be broadcast on Challenge TV) and the Grand Slam of Darts (to be screened on ITV).

There are two Dutch independently organised major tournaments the International Darts League, and the World Darts Trophy which as from 2007 feature a mix of BDO and PDC players. Both organisations allocate rankings to the tournaments.

The WDF World Cup for national teams and a singles tournament has been played biennially since 1977. The WDF also organise the Europe Cup. Shirley Welker is currently the reigning WDF Champion.

Televised darts

Darts first appeared on British television in 1962 when Westward Television broadcast the Westward TV Invitational to the south-west of England. In 1970, ITV broadcast the News of the World Championship and from 1972 the Indoor League, which featured a darts tournament.

Over the next decade darts coverage expanded with many major tournaments appearing on both ITV and BBC through the 1970s and early 1980s, but the cancellation of ITV's World of Sport show in 1985 meant they had to cut back on darts coverage but despite this they still showed the World Masters until 1988. The BBC also cut back on their coverage to the extent that one major event was still broadcast on either channel by 1988 - the World Championship.

With the creation of the WDC/PDC in 1992/93, darts gradually returned to television with Sky Television covering the new organization's World Championship and World Matchplay events from 1994. Sky's coverage continued to increase throughout the 1990s, with more new events added. The PDC's Premier League, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay and the World Grand Prix are all televised live on Sky.

The BBC finally began to expand their darts coverage in 2001 when they added the World Masters to their portfolio. However, it wasn't until 2005 that viewers were able to see every dart thrown live at the World Championship. This was the year that BBC introduced interactive coverage on its BBCi service.

Darts has continued to grow again on television and there now several major tournaments broadcast in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world. Dutch station, Sport One, DSF in Germany and several other tv stations across the globe also broadcast the PDC events.

In Europe, Eurosport broadcast the Lakeside World Championships, having signed a three-year contract in 2006, and that year also broadcast the Finland Open, the BDO British Internationals, the BDO England Open and the BDO British Open. There has been no Eurosport coverage of Open events since 2007.

In the Netherlands, SBS6 has broadcast the Lakeside (since 1998) and the Dutch Open. They also shown the International Darts League and World Darts Trophy, however they are now defunct. RTL 5 broadcast the Dutch Grand Masters in 2005. Some of these tournaments can also be watched on the internet for free using a live stream, depending on contractual restrictions (external links: SBS Streams^{[8][9][10][11][12]} and Watchdarts.com stream^[13])

The PDC has also tried to break into the television market in the United States by introducing the World Series of Darts in 2006. It had a $1 million prize to showcase professional darts in the United States. Unfortunately the programme was not a ratings success and was taken from its peak time broadcast slot on ESPN after just a few weeks. The tournament was replaced with a US Open event in 2007 which was screened in the UK on digital television channel Challenge TV, with Nuts TV showing the 2008 tournament.

ITV returned to darts coverage in November 2007, showing the inaugural Grand Slam of Darts - its first major darts tournament coverage in almost twenty years. They also added a second PDC event in October 2008 with the new European Championship. Setanta Sports have also televised darts tournaments for the first time during 2008 by showing several BDO Open events and the new League of Legends.

Betting

In places where alcohol is consumed, English law has long permitted betting only on games of skill, as opposed to games of chance, and then only for small stakes. An apocryphal tale relates that in 1908, Jim Garside, the landlord of the Adelphi Inn, Leeds, England was called before the local magistrates to answer the charge that he had allowed betting on a game of chance, darts, on his premises. Garside asked for the assistance of local champion William Bigfoot Anakin who attended as a witness and demonstrated that he could hit any number on the board nominated by the court. Garside was discharged as the magistrates found darts, indeed, to be a game of skill. More recently, in keeping with Darts' strong association with pubs and drinking, matches between friends or pub teams are often played for pints.

In the professional game, betting is prominent with many of the big bookmaking companies sponsoring events (particularly within the PDC). Sky Bet (World Grand Prix, Premier League), Stan James (World Matchplay), Blue Square (UK Open) and Ladbrokes (World Championship) are all title sponsors of major PDC events.

On FSN broadcasts in the United States, the logos for Ladbrokes are pixelized out and digitally obscured, along with any audible references to Ladbrokes, due to American laws and policies against online gambling.

Famous players

For a list of famous players' nicknames see: List of darts players nicknames

World Champions

Other famous and notable players

Other darts games and variants

An 'East-End' or 'Fives' dartboard

There are a number of regional variations on the standard rules and scoring systems. Round the Clock is a variation that involves hitting the numbers in sequence^[14] . Jumpers is a variation played in Asia.^[15]

There are also a number of games regarding placing pictures of famous people onto dart boards.^{[citation needed]}

Fives

A regional variant still played in some parts of the East End of London. The board has fewer, larger segments, all numbered either 5, 10, 15 or 20. Players play down from 505 rather than 501, and stand further (9 ft) away from the board.^[16]

American darts

American Darts, despite the name, is a regional USA variant of the game (most U.S. dart players play the traditional games described above). This style of dart board is most often found in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and parts of New York state.

Darts cricket

Dartball

References

See also

• Darts world rankings current ranking lists for BDO & PDC.
• Darts Tournaments previous winners, history and information.
• Darts Players profiles.
• List of darts players nicknames
• Nine dart finish - the "perfect" game in darts.
• Glossary of Darts
• Pub games & Pub Sports
• Bullseye - A British game show based around darts.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Darts

• Dart Rules
• Dart News & Articles
• Darts News on The Oche
• Online history of traditional games
• Darts Results
• The Dartboard
• Online Darts Game
• Darts Database
• Latvia Darts Organization (LDO)